


Growing Back a Life

by Ramzes



Series: Flowers Growing on a Grave [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2020-06-26 02:28:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19758733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ramzes/pseuds/Ramzes
Summary: “I’m doing my best to bandage the wounds,” his father would often say, “but I won’t be able to do it in a lifetime. It’ll be up to you to bring my efforts to conclusion, my son.”We've often heard of Daenerys Martell, what she might have felt or not, might have sacrificed or not. And in all this, her Martell husband has mainly been voiceless and thrilled on any level to wed her. Was he?





	1. Child of Hopes

He was born in a city and castle that had only just begun their slow, painful restoration; the smell of mortar was as natural to him as the scent from flowers from the gardens in the Old Palace and the constant thumping of axes, the creaking of woods and the piercing rhythmic sound of stone-cutter instruments were a lullaby as soothing as the songs of the desert that his wetnurse hummed over his cradle and the rhythms of his mother Lysene homeland.

Sunspear grew along him, with him after its near destruction in what the books north of the Red Mountain proudly called the Conquest of Dorne.

“The short-lived Conquest of Dorne,” his sister never failed to remind everyone.

Their lady mother would just sigh. “You won’t be winning any friends in your new home if you keep saying it, Mariah. Everyone knows how short-lived it was. Your new family doesn’t need any reminders. You must be diplomatic.”

Maron Martell did not yet know what diplomatic meant but he could say that his sister was clearly not it.

Sunspear kept growing and he did as well – kept growing with the smells, sights, and sounds of rebuilding… and the sudden commotion when someone would rush to his father to announce that a new one had been found.

A new secret mass grave.

Maron could not say when he came to knew what these were. He had likely heard it first before he could even talk and sometimes, he could swear that he had _known_ it at the time as well – that those dried up wells, lonely fields, huge trees with earth around them too recently disturbed in sharp contrast with the parched up soil of the forests around them, dilapidated houses were the places where the good, the true, the brave had found their graves. The ones who had dared oppose Daeron Targaryen and his stewards… He had seen the recognition of one such corpse from one such grave. When he became older, he could reason out that it must have been one of the latest graves and that the very location of it – one of the almost ruined buildings in the thickest shadows of the north-oriented oldest parts of the Old Palace used to storage ice for as long as it would hold, the bodies had been almost… recognizable not just by their clothes. But he would never forget his early horror at the sight of the half-melted faces, the teeth bared because of the lack of lips, and the sobs of a mother who had been brought over to identify her son…

“I’m doing my best to bandage the wounds,” his father would often say, “but I won’t be able to do it in a lifetime. It’ll be up to you to bring my efforts to conclusion, my son.”

 _No,_ Maron would think. _It would be up to my sister._ Because he knew that in Dorne, almost all of Dorne, and this part of Dorne in particular, first children inherited, always, at any rate. All first children – except for the daughter of the Prince himself. And she did not even have the redress every other disinherited child of Dorne had – they could at least address their lords. Whom could Mariah appeal to? Only her father, which would be waste of time! Instead, she stood to lose her birthright _and_ be the sacrifice they would send to the Targaryen court and the Targaryen of the hated name.

Even when it became increasingly clear that Mariah would be queen, it was not enough to make Maron feel less of a thief.

As a child of six, he would sit quietly as maester after maester taught Mariah the wisdom of the Citadel and the highest minds of Dorne’s diplomacy taught her how to parry the blows in the city that she would be calling her home. The blows!

“You should never talk about the war, unless it is to say how grateful you are that misunderstandings are over.”

“And if they aren’t over?” Mariah challenged and her face turned that peculiar shade of golden brown it took when she blushed.

“Especially then!”

She would then barely refrain from rolling her eyes and Maron would look down without knowing, without even suspecting just how useful these lessons would be to him one day. The profound impression they left upon his soul would do him much good in his own marriage… but that would not come to be for some twenty years. At the time, Daenerys Targaryen was not even born.

All this time, Sunspear kept growing.

* * *

“I won’t go any further,” Mariah said stubbornly and their mother sighed. Even the eight-year-old Maron knew that she would. What else could she do – turn a heel and go back to Sunspear? Where their father would grab her and deliver her to King’s Landing single-handedly? But these grown-up reasons could not change his eight-year-old _feelings_ , clearly, because Princess Siella shot him a hard look before turning to her daughter to pour some reason into her.

At this time, Maron was old enough to perceive the obvious lack of joy for Mariah’s wedding in these parts. In Sunspear, people had become more used to it because the ravens and preparations had been part of their lives for years, but in the Red Mountains where lords and ladies were farther from the control of the Martells, resentment was clear, in both high and lowborn. Maron had already heard the whispers about the massacres that the Young Dragon himself had caused here, about a village left without men in a single day because fathers, sons, and uncles had all fallen defending their homeland, about the rebellions suppressed with blood all over the mountain and how the Torrentine had gone almost blocked with bodies thrown there from all the length of her stream. Few could pretend joy. Lady Dayne of Starfall had not even come to greet their party and by the look in his mother’s eye, Maron could see that she did not believe in the alleged illness that had prevented her from making the journey.

It’s been just as many years as I have lived and yet hatred is just as bright and hot as it was then, Maron thought. And I’ll have to make it stop one day? How?

The Targaryens did not help his love for peace, though. It was always understood that Daeron Targaryen would come to fetch his bride from the border, as the Dornish custom was; now, it had turned out that he was impeded from coming and Mariah was beyond enraged – enraged enough to speak unguardedly.

“If they think I’ll be running to them like a puppy, they’re very much mistaken,” she claimed, whereupon their mother required a conversation without anyone near – Maron could not make out anything despire his keen, trained hearing. But on the next day, Mariah mounted her mare obediently and he comforted himself by looking at the new wooden buildings in Castle Skyreach. They had rebuilt there, too. His eyes went up the highest tower, shining silver in the sunlight.

“I always try to see if it can truly reach the sky as well,” someone said next to him. He quickly looked down, ashamed to be caught at so blatantly obviously trying to check if something impossible was actually possible. Then, his eyes fell on the person who had spoken.

It was a girl his own age, dark-haired and dark-eyed. He hoped she would grow up because this far, the only thing that told her apart from a child of five were her keen eyes and the somewhat mature facial lines. But his discomfort went away immediately. It was only a child.

“And have you seen this?” he asked.

Elana Jordayne shook her head. “When I look up high enough, the sun always blinds me,” she confessed. “But I like to think it does reach it.”

For some reason, Maron liked her as soon as she said this. And for the rest of his life, he would be careful not to dwell on what this _some_ reason was. Now, he only looked around to make sure that everyone was focused on the bride and said, “Perhaps you’ll be able to show me the old haunts here when we get back?”

Without answering, she simply smiled back.


	2. The Heart Desires

At the time of Mariah’s wedding, little was known in Dorne about Daeron Targaryen. He was said to be mild in his manners, bookish and not warlike at all – something that seemed to resonate well with Maron’s lord mother – his lady mother, not so much!

“I know, I know Mariah is clever, I know it all, but what if she’s disappointed with him? What if she gives up to her notions of men of physical power?” she sometimes fretted in the solitude of her solar, with only her husband, Maron, and a few trusted retainers in vicinity.

“She won’t,” the Prince said with absolute certainty. “This isn’t what a clever girl would do and besides, she’s been taught too well.”

At this point, Siella would change the topic because she could never get her husband to agree that Mariah might be anything short of perfect. Besides, the habit of keeping things that might make him rage at Mariah was still strong. Maron had seen his sister staring dreamily after young men of strong built quite a few times but his father had not.

When Mariah’s first child was born, the Prince’s nearest circle was quite appalled. “Dark-haired?” Siella groaned. “They’ll never let her live through this! He should not have been dark-haired!”

Maron could only imagine how much worse it was at King’s Landing! His determination to do well, to make Mariah’s sacrifice worth it grew. His tutors were immensely pleased with him; in the practice yard, the master at-arms was often heard commenting that he had not had a student this eager in years. Maron stood at his father’s shoulder during tedious meetings with his councilors without yawning, listened attentively as supplicants came with pleas reasonable and not so reasonable, easily solved or not so much. And yet, somehow, it was never enough.

Time went on but there was not one bad news about Mariah’s conduct – only the way her husband adored her, forsaking all others. Slowly, Maron’s mother calmed down. And when letters, messengers, and tokens started arriving from her, the letters always signed discreetly by both herself and her husband – with lines from him as well, before he started sending letters himself, the idea of a lasting peace as something possible slowly made its way in people’s minds.

It was then that the possibility of betrothing Maron to Daenerys Targaryen first came to mind and even in the times of darkest regrets and wishing to turn back time, he could not lie and say that he had been averse to the idea. Why should he have been? He considered it natural and didn’t give it much thought. At the time, Daenerys was a small child and he was headed for youth, with all joys and sorrows that it entailed. Besides, King Aegon could marry her to someone else while he lived, as disinterested in her as he was – in fact, if their eyes and ears at the Red Keep could be believed, he would likely do it as soon as he learned what Daeron intended to do after his death, out of sheer spite. Maron was glad that for all of his own father’s faults, spite was always aimed at others, not his own family!

* * *

He saw Elana Jordayne at the celebrations held for his sixteenth nameday – and they were thunderstruck. She was not this different from the other girls – black hair, brown eyes, light-olive skin, a little carmine on the lips – but somehow, with the green gown and the hair held back by a pair of ivory combs, she looked far more grown-up that he had expected in the two years since their last meeting.

“Is this… is this Elana?”he finally asked, finding his voice just when he should not have.

Lady Jordayne actually turned back to glare at him after this indecent question before hurrying her youngest sister on their way. Maron’s mother looked impervious to any hint of shame but he knew it was just her self-control. He would hear about it just a few hours later, he did not doubt it. Even the fact that the celebration was in his honour would not stop her, so why should he deprive himself? He stared after the two women, wondering what had happened to his old friend Elana who had used to make him lift her high so she could see Oldtown!

Since then, everything seemed to conspire to get them together. He met her whenever he went – in the market, at the seashore where she was walking barefoot like she did at the Tor, on a ride. If he helped fate some – well, it would be no fate if humans could change it, was it not so? His mother lashed out at him, Lady Jordayne stopped hiding her displeasure and after a while, Elana stopped leaving their chambers unattended. Even Maron’s sworn shield looked deeply disapproving, as if a few walks together after almost accidentally bumping into each other were something this big!

“Stop it,” his mother finally said without bothering with reproaches and lectures that were not working at all. “You’ll ruin her life.”

“I want to wed her.”

She stared at him before shaking her head. “You can’t be this stupid,” she said, staring and staring, wondering where her clever, practical, reasonable son had gone. “You know very well that you are going to wed Daenerys Targaryen.”

“I know no such thing,” he said angrily. “King Aegon can wed her to whomever he pleases even as soon as tomorrow. And even if he does not, by the time the child is old enough to wed, so many things might change.”

“Even if they do, this changes nothing where your marriage is concerned. You don’t seriously expect that we’d wed you to the youngest sister of a Lady with sons of her own and I forgot how many brothers and sisters older than Elana.”

She did not even bother to raise her voice, the idea was this stupid to her. Maron refused to be treated like a child begging for a toy, though. “Why not?” he asked. “As far as I’ve heard, you were the most unpopular bride coming here in centuries! Did my grandfather kill my other grandfather, by the way?”

She went so pale that for a moment, he was afraid that she would swoon. But she recovered and pointed a shaking hand at him. “Out!” she hissed. “Leave my sight immediately!”

“Gladly!” he replied but the sharpness of her reaction resonated with him more than any pleas or scorn might have. She had been a scared bride coming to a husband who had all the reasons to despise her, Maron knew. But she had done her duty, twenty years before Mariah. Would he be the only one who refused? Because of his right of love? The right that everyone else had forfeited?

But Elana did not care. She even laughed when she jumped through her second-floor window right in his waiting arms, not caring that if he failed to catch her, her head would be split in two against the century-old stones of the pavement. “I don’t care,” she said. “I don’t need to be wed to you to love you.”

“But you will suffer much because of loving me.” He did not want to say it but he felt that he should. “My love will only be a shield for a time. At the end, you will lose much more than me. You’ll likely be better off making the match your sister will make for you. You aren’t a paramour material, Elana. You’ve been brought up to be a lady wife.”

She laughed again. “You don’t know just how good a paramour material I can be,” she said. “You’ll see.”

To his shame, he did not try to convince her further – had he ever tried to do this, or simply soothe his conscience? He took her by the hand and led her into the gardens, under the stooped branches of an old tree with leaves that made the canopy of the nuptial bed the two of them would never have.


	3. The Trumpet Blows

Years went by faster than Maron had ever expected. Finally, at last, the war that he had been born at the end of retreated and became a memory around him, a wound that was ready to bleed when touched in an improper way but kept scarring. There was no other way. Life went on even for those who had seen the conquest. It might be a hard one – it was for many, - but it was a life anyway. The hovels in the shadow city were rebuilt and so were the imposing buildings within the walls of Sunspear. A new generation was born and to these children, war was not even a shade, the way it had been for Maron. They could not see the wound.

Like his own children.

Yes, life was turning out great for him. His boys were healthy, robust and quite clever for their ages already. The apprehensions that the future ruler of Dorne intended to set a new manner in his private life by dishonouring the daughters of noble families when whims took him faded over time when it became clear that Elana was and would remain his only one – the only one in his bed, the only one in his life. She bore his children, wore the presents Essosi envoys offered at their arrival, soothed storms with the help of wives and womenfolk of men of note, graced his table at formal dinners and his solar at not so formal gatherings, brought into his life the warmth he had not anticipated and had come to love so much.

They were living on borrowed time.

With the stubbornness that had once made her shape her mind that she would be with him, no matter what, Elana refused to talk or even hear about this. “I will do what I have to when the time comes and not before,” she stated often enough and after a while, Maron stopped trying. After all, the topic was not dear to his heart either.

“I wish you could wed her,” his mother once said and although she did not discuss the matter further, this was the closest thing he could expect of her in terms of acceptance. She was born in the land of pillow-houses and slave girls and she was firmly of the opinion that women’s parts in a man’s life should be clearly defined. She did not associate with Elana and disliked her – Elana disliked her right back, he had to admit – but she adored her grandchildren and they loved her back.

“I wish we could go on like this forever,” Elana said sometimes, in rare moment of lowering her defences, and he would take her in his arms, realizing that despite her charming petulance, she was not possessed of childlike naivety at all. She knew what lay ahead of them…

“Let’s go out for a walk,” he would say in such moments and soon, they would find themselves in the garden or at the seashore, walking hand in hand. One or more of the children usually ran around them…

Time went on and King Aegon engaged himself in pursuit of pleasures and petty revenges – and trying to undermine his heir’s position. While concerned in the beginning, Maron soon realized that for all of Aegon’s cunning and loud vitriol, he would never dare denounce Daeron openly. Daeron and Mariah would have to use all their resilience, brains, and diplomatic skills to keep things under a certain limit of pressure until their time came. Maron might have never seen his goodbrother in person but if Mariah was spun out of something, it was resilience and will. Her tutors had moulded her without breaking her. She would endure.

* * *

The day that changed his life forever started like every other day. He woke up with no sheet over him because Elana had hogged it again. He tugged it experimentally and she let out a protesting groan, then barred her teeth because even in her sleep, she knew that he did not need it. He was just teasing her. He did not dare kiss her because he might receive a bite for his caress but he stroked her hair and started dressing. The hot tea and cold water were already waiting for him, together with the documents that needed his signature. Then, the messages that had come last night. He did not have a good feeling about them. A short time before his father’s death, there had been attempts to force Sunspear into allowing lords to build castles without permission; there were still some who believed they could talk the new young ruler into giving them what they wanted. _Over my dead body_ , Maron thought and then saw the letter with the three-headed dragon seal.

He could not say that he had any sense of foreboding. He received many letters by Daeron and Mariah, after all. But this one was different. It carried Dorne’s future. Changed his fate. Announced a king’s death and another king’s rising.

Maron knew that he should inform his councilors immediately. The news were too important to delay but delay he did. He returned to his bedchamber and stared at the sleeping Elana, feeling that this was the beginning of the end.

* * *

There was nothing wrong with delaying. Nothing had been determined yet. The details of a decision so momentous might take years! Why should he send Elana away now? In the practice yard, their oldest son was just starting to master his first wooden sword – really master it. Elana came to watch every day and he tried to do the same, even if only for a brief moment. They were his family still and the negotiations might even fail – why ruin what they had so early on?

“I’m being so damned unfair,” he told her tiredly after another day of heated arguments in the Tower of the Sun. “I really don’t get it how I can keep you at my side still. The Seven see that I haven’t been a pleasant companion lately. If you had an ounce of common sense, you would have left me long ago.”

He was being sincere. At twenty-three, he was still young enough to instinctively reject the idea of surrendering the independence of Dorne, no matter what – and there were more than enough people to feed this emotion!

“I parted with common sense the moment I threw my lot in with you,” Elana replied, “and threw the joys of a virtuous life away.”

She did not look at him. She was mending a tiny doublet; engrossed in her work, she looked, ironically, like the very incarnation of a virtuous wife and mother. But after a while, she looked up as he paced restlessly. “Doubts again?” she asked, reading his expression effortlessly.

He nodded and forced himself to sit down. “Why am I doing this?” he asked. “Submitting Dorne and myself to another rule? The rule of those who have been trying to destroy Dorne for almost two centuries? After we _won_? Against the will of the people? Rousing the animosity of my own bannermen? Why am I doing this, Elana?”

It was not the first time he wondered. She had been suffering his doubts and bad moods for months. _If he was just a little older_ , she thought, _he might have been more confident in his reasoning;_ _if I were just a little older, I might have known how to instill him with confidence._ But they had seen just twenty-four namedays each. And the arguments he was laying out now sounded so very right. But he did not know, could never know if it was the arguments of the people who disagreed or his own vanity talking.

He was twenty-four and right now, he was equal to the Targaryen king. He was offering to humble his pride but it was so very hard.

“Because Dorne can’t go on being isolated,” Elana said. “Not when you have the chance to change this. Trade will truly flourish when better connections are fostered and better roads made. You have now the unprecedented chance to insist on better terms for selling our goods. And well, once we join the Seven Kingdoms, there will be no inciting unrest and running to cross the border to safety. They will be returned, not sheltered.”

He snorted. “So, instead of troublemakers, we’ll have Vulture Kings?”

She raised her eyebrows questioningly. “Have we stopped having them?”

Oh! She hoped she’d get a good place on the seventh cloud one day because she was furthering her own hell on earth! All her arguments were good and sound _but Maron was going to marry another._ That was what she was encouraging and no, the fact that she had known there would be a royal bride, Daenerys Targaryen, all the time did not help. Now, the prospect was looming over her, huge and threatening, veiling her entire future in black. She would lose her life, as she knew it. She would be sent away and this was right. She would not have loved Maron if he had suggested to carry on with their affair after his wedding. And she could not share him anyway. She’d rather die.

Parting was a little death, as singers claimed, and now Elana knew this was true. She would lose her love; her children would lose their father because things between them could never be the same. There was just this huge emptiness waiting for her. If she was smart, she would leave now. He was right – he no longer gave her much joy.

But she was right as well: it had never been about common sense between them.

So they kept living together, awaiting the future and separation even as Elana’s linens remained lily white and she realized that she was carrying a child, a child whose father would be wed at the time of its birth; and then future shrank to horror and desperate hope and eventually, stunned horror as the scarlet fever made the leap from the shadow city into the courtyards of Sunspear and the nursery, leaving them with just one son out of three.


	4. Dark Seas

Healing. Past becoming a memory, scarring their current life but not actively causing pain. A marriage of peace. Parting with part of their essence and pride to gain the benefits of being included in the realm that spanned a continent – save for their own land.

Maron could not believe he had fallen for this illusion. That he had not seen. The tension had already been there, building up ever since the negotiations with the Iron Throne had begun but he had believed he could disperse it over time. The epidemics, an all too common thing everywhere every year, had made all the difference this far.

 _A bad omen,_ people whispered in the markets, at the ships, between the sand dunes, even in his own castle. _It’s a bad omen. He’s selling our freedom for a chest of gold and the sake of fucking a woman of silver hair. He’s tired of Lady Elana who was never aught but loyal and devoted to him. He ruined her health to have children by her and now he’s throwing her to the wolves._ And with each retelling, the chest became bigger. Maron expected that in a few days, it would turn into a ship and the Targaryen girl would be transformed into a woman educated in all the arts of the pillow houses of Lys!

His enemies were now almost, almost revealing themselves, screeching in an increasingly loud chorus that he was dishonouring and destroying Dorne. If he were a little more level-headed, he would have goaded them further and have some outward justification to do away with them legally – to do what was right and to the seven hells with consequences. But level-headedness was buried somewhere along the two tiny graves that people claimed had swallowed his love for Elana. He heard about the Yronwoods’ attempts and success to gain influence not just in the Red Mountains but the desert and felt nothing but indifference.

“People are taking it the wrong way,” Lord Dayne warned him, the only bannerman in this region who was firmly for the peace.

Over the years, Maron had gained quite trusting and appreciative of the older man with mild manners and body permanently injured by the war. He knew that the warning should be heeded but he simply could not.

“Perhaps now, it’s the time to listen,” he said instead as they sat in Maron’s solar and drank cold lemon water without honeying it. “Perhaps I should say this was an omen, leave things be and just wed Elana as I want?”

“It isn’t,” Davos Dayne replied firmly. “There will be another attempt of conquest, sooner or later. From what we hear, King Daeron is strongly influenced by your sister – I saw it myself. His sons do look well-intentioned – but can we guarantee this about _their_ sons?”

“This Maekar isn’t,” Dyanna Dayne muttered without looking away from the embroidery she looked entirely, deceptively focused on.

“Do you want to leave?” her father asked and Dyanna went silent.

Maron had the feeling that should he ask, Dyanna would be only too happy to tell him all about his nephew's moral failings. But he would see them for himself soon enough: this chance was one in a century. He should not miss it for Dorne, even if Dorne grew increasingly misunderstanding and suspicious of his intentions. Even if he found it harder to care about all those prideful fools when all he could think about were Elana and the children – the dead and the living ones.

* * *

The day when the market boasted a series of woolen female sand demons of silver hair and eyes that were as close to purple as the cheap dye would allow and the entire stock was bought off in just a few hours, ladies rushing towards the markets themselves to make their purchase, Maron knew that things had headed in a direction that was leading to a precipice.

“Throw this away,” Elana said apathetically just when he entered his bedchamber and the chambermaid quickly hid the doll behind her back. Not noticing Maron, the young woman added, “The poor girl is barely fifteen.”

But she had no energy left to truly be indignant on Daenerys Targaryen’s behalf. Indeed, Maron had the feeling that she had no energy for anything…

“How are the two of you?” he asked, placing a hand on Elana’s belly. The swell had actually gone a little down which scared him.

She tried to smile. “He moved just a little while ago.”

Maron felt a rush of relief and at the same time, the piercing of superstitious worry that was no different from the conviction of the smallfolk that the scarlet fever, the two children’s deaths, was a sign of a heavenly disapproval of his bold actions. This child rejected him because he was going to give up on its mother and the babe knew it…

“Did you have a bite today?” he asked, took the hands covered with new red streaks caused by her own nails, and kissed them.

“Yes,” she said. “Not as much as to have him happy, though. I just couldn’t. I am not very good at keeping my children alive.”

Always this. Since the very first moment the fever had struck, Elana had been convinced that it was her fault for not leaving sooner, going back to her family, as if in the Tor the plague would not have found them. She still was.

“You are,” Maron said. “You are a good mother, Elana.”

But she did not even bother to deny it.

* * *

“What are you going to do about her?” his mother asked. “You have to move her out before you set out to bring Daenerys here.”

Maron shook his head. “I can’t move her out. You saw her. Does she strike you as someone who can undertake any kind of journey?”

Siella Martell pursed her lips. “It’s your own fault,” she said harshly. “You should have sent her away months ago, before any of this happened. You’re now going to leave here and leave the obligation to move her out shortly before your return to me, aren’t you? Aren’t you?!”

“No,” Maron replied, keeping his voice carefully under control. “I will move her to her new house in the city myself.”

It would be the hardest thing he had ever done but it was right. This was part of the price he had to pay for destroying her future for years and it was right, everyone had to pay somehow for what they had taken. And while he did not think his mother would be intentionally cruel of unfeeling towards Elana, he’d never take the risk of a word amiss, another arrow at a heart already broken.

He threw himself into arranging Elana’s new settings in a way that even he knew was ridiculous. So much care for her surrounding while destroying her soul anew.

Each step he made in the vast halls reminded him how quiet this house would be; the sun that streamed through tens of wide glass windows looked needlessly bright when she would not appreciate it and the ones who had found it a wonder were no longer there; the labour of the gardeners who carried a pot after a pot of flowers and planted trees to create a paradise of freshness and soothing green for her looked so meaningless when she would not even see it.

Now. She would not see it now. But one day, she would. She had to. This house was the most important building that Maron had ever witnessed.

At the end, Elana did not appreciate it. She no longer cared about anything; with a pang in his heart, Maron could only watch as their one remaining son slowly withdrew from her tears, painful embraces, and constant fretting over his health. He could not explain it to Garin that he needed to show more empathy. There were limits to what a child could take. 

* * *

Maron boarded the ship to King’s Landing with the feeling that he was going to meet his doom and the sensation that he was a traitor. Essentially, he was betraying Elana. He had betrayed Garin too. His guilty consolation was the bitter realization that neither Elana nor their son would ever know that he had intended to legitimize Garin and the new babe before he gave this right to the Targaryen king as well. All these years of planning it had failed to take into account the hostile reception Daenerys Targaryen, the sand demon, would find in Dorne. He could not, would not do anything that would give anyone the potential to use his children against each other and tear Dorne even further apart. Not that Dorne deserved it this much, being choked full of fools and traitors; but Maron could not do it anyway.

The first feeling that he was on the right course in his overall actions came when the cheering crowd at the King’s Landing Harbour parted for the first person come to welcome him: Maron saw himself at the age of seventeen but dressed in a non-Dornish attire. Baelor Targaryen, Mariah’s Dornish-looking, Dornish-mannered, Dornish-armed son. Yes, he much preferred looking at this living proof that living together was possible than the very beautiful girl he would wed. _I don’t want her,_ Maron thought. _I want Elana._

For the first time, he realized just how hard it would be for him to be fair to Daenerys Targaryen as well.


	5. Brave and True

Baelor caught the sideway look Maron was giving him and laughed. “What, remembering the times long gone when you used to be young and handsome as well?”

Maron shook his head and smiled. “Not quite! I was remembering the times long gone when I used to be full of brazenness and braggadocio as well…”

Baelor threw his head back and laughed. “My mother’s nursemaid told me not to try such witticisms on you. She told me that should I do it, you’d outtalk me. I suppose she was right. Still, your eyes were quite peculiar. Is something not to your liking?”

 _You_ , Maron thought. _You are not to my liking._ Of course, it had nothing to do with actually disliking Baelor but this boy with Dornish looks, this boy of his blood, this boy who wore the insignia of the highest ranking made him wonder what Garin would look like when he reached this age. A bastard in Dorne was still a bastard; a bastard of the Prince remained bastard-born… It was not as if he had not given the matter any thought before now but staring at Baelor felt like a curtain was being torn off, revealing the world’s true colours – and they were ugly ones. There would not be any honours for Garin, not anything like what Baelor enjoyed. Regret and bitterness choked him and yet what could he wish for? He could only think of wishing Garin away and this, he could not do for the world.

The people of King’s Landing had come to the streets in crowds to look at him. The curiosity was great and he could not say that he did not feel hostility here and there but mostly, it was flowers and acclaim and Maron could not think with some guilt and foreboding about the welcome Daenerys would find in Sunspear. It would be nothing like this. The last fights had not taken place in this land, they had been in his own. It was inevitable.

His parents had trained him to listen to the voice of people and he did now. There was no true hatred towards him and against Baelor, it was even less. The love of the smallfolk of King’s Landing for their young and merry prince could be felt in every acclaim, every knee bent under his look. “I remember when your mother left Dorne,” Maron said. “I could say that she was scared. But she seems to have put her time here to some good use. Are the highborn as enthused in their love as smallfolk?”

Baelor’s lip curled down in contempt before he could school his face to neutrality.

“Some of them are,” he said. “Others, not so much. You’ll see for yourself.”

The closer they got to the palace, the more anxious he looked. Oh, he was hiding it well but Maron could see the signs – a face constantly shifting to all expressions but one of fear, too confident a posture, knees that directed the horse more often than necessarily… A Maron this age indeed he was! Of course, not a word was said. He would not insult Baelor’s pride like this.

It did not take him long to see indeed. The party that had come to welcome him had been carefully chosen between those who were known to have been Daeron and Mariah’s allies for years before their coming to the throne; but the King could not bar some others from entrance without starting a rumour that he was scared of their discontent. The glint of steel was literally the first thing he saw upon entering the Red Keep, although no one was as stupid as to draw the blade entirely. “Even Aegor isn’t this foolhardly,” Baelor murmured next to him and Maron glanced at him in surprise. The name they heard most often in Dorne as someone who created troubles, minor but persistent, was Daemon Blackfyre, not Aegor Rivers and yet out of the two, he was the one Baelor stared hard at. Aegor returned the look with grim challenge and Maron wondered if he’d really dare enter the King’s presence with a sword part-drawn from the scabbard. What would Daeron do if he did? Fortunately, the boy pushed the blade fully in right before they entered the throne room.

As the herolds announced them, Baelor bit his lip and finally made his decision: he leaned towards his uncle and whispered, “If you want to make a real progress with my lord father, be brave and true.”

Maron had no time to ask what he meant because the announcement was over and they were entering the throne room.

His first look was towards Mariah and he had to admit that had he seen her in the street, he would have never recognized her. Time had passed kindly for her but it had passed and in passing, it had wiped away so many of his memories. He had simply been too young to gather enough of them and she had disappeared from his life way too early. His parents, his friends and Elana, his heart at all times and in any places – these were the people who had shaped his life and personality. Only now, Mariah and her husband had shaped his life as well, with his own voluntarily contribution. He was grateful that propriety dictated of him not to look at Daenerys Targaryen twice this early in their acquaintance. Despite everything, he felt all of a sudden that he was not ready to shape his life with her, the way he had always expected that he would. From the little he saw of her, he decided that she was very beautiful. He did not care. He might have been slated to wed the nursemaid Baelor had mentioned and it would have made no difference. He wanted Elana and only Elana.

 _This is Dorne’s moment_ , he told himself and pushed her away from his mind, knowing that she would return with vengeance. But not now.

Mariah’s hand was warm against his lips and the scent of rose and jasmine, a combination that few women preferred, brought back the sea of memories that he had lost. These were the small ways she had preserved her Dornishness, he realized. She had stayed herself, even in gowns that had nothing to do with what the women of her land wore.

“I’m so happy to see you,” he said and to his surprise, it was true.

“Are you really?” a boy standing near the throne murmured.

“Hush, Rhaegel,” another boy whispered urgently but without much surprise.

“I was only asking,” the first one replied.

“Of course he is,” the second one said firmly; even while exchanging greetings with Mariah and her husband, Maron noticed in passing that neither of them even tried to help, leaving their sons to deal with their brother instead. _Not fair towards them_ , _not brave and not true,_ he thought before remembering that he was hardly qualified to talk of fairness towards his children. His heart froze with remorse and belated regrets, with bitter helplessness and remained so as Daeron turned to him and presented Daenerys. His future bride. A lovely, blushing girl, very happy and quite nervous. Maron bowed over her hand and gave her the smile everyone expected. She soaked it up and he felt like the biggest liar who had ever lived.

Just a girl.

* * *

"People are going to say I’m doing it because my queen has influenced me,” Daeron said, smiling. “It’s going to be the talk of the realm for a generation, I think.”

Maron leaned back in his chair, wondering if his goodbrother was indeed this careless. “And you truly don’t mind?” he asked.

The King shrugged. “For twelve years, I lived trying to preserve this realm despite my father’s whims – and I had no choice but take his position into consideration,” he said. “I’ll be damned if I take the opinion some fools hold of me into consideration. It isn’t as if I can force the most important concession on you, is it?”

Maron’s breath caught. Daeron had asked the question levelly, almost absent-mindedly, but he had hit the core of it. _I can’t force you to force your smallfolk to accept my direct authority in the matter of taxes_ , that was what he meant. This same smallfolk had risen to expell the intruders from Dorne against the highborn’s – against the Prince’s – expressed and sworn wishes; Maron did not delude himself that he could bring his people to suffer the indignity of being taxed and following laws not their own. They would rather force him to seek refuge at his sister’s court as a displaced ruler so they could keep living under a constant threat but with their pride intact! What did his own pride matter compared to the knowledge that he might have missed the best chance Dorne had had in centuries to lay the foundations of peace and prosperity…

“I see you can get my reasoning,” Daeron said calmly.

Maron did. After all, Daeron could hardly tell his court and people that the peace would not last unless he made these concessions. It would be better, much better for everyone but his pride if the explanation was the usual one – that a woman had him under her thumb. Mariah would be easily forgiven – she was Dornish, after all. But he – he would be despised. For a generation, at least. Just like he had said.

The two of them were almost alone in the huge solar. In the far end, Baelor and Maekar were doing their own things but Maron had the feeling that both gave an ear to what was being said. Maekar’s presence struck him as odd – after all, it should have been Baelor and Aerys. And Maekar was hardly someone who had won his father’s particular affection or even notice. But this was no time to ask.

“Is it always so dark here?” he asked and his goodbrother shrugged.

“The walls make it worse,” he said. “And it’s the first floor which dims the light even further. This was one of the reasons Mariah and I never liked Maegor’s Holdfast. At Dragonstone, we lived on the highest floor but even so, it was never bright enough for Mariah.”

Nothing is bright enough for the eyes that are used to the glow and glower of the Dornish sun, old Ser Jasper Blackwood had used to say. Maron also loved light and Elana never missed the chance to soak in it.

 _Not here,_ he thought. _Not now, my love. Please._

 _So you really want me to go away?_ she asked in his mind and her voice was not that of the broken woman he had left behind but the woman who had been his light and life for so very long.

No, he admitted but forced her off anyway because he had to do something that he had no desire to. But he did not want to delay for another time – he did not know if they would be without company ever again.

“Mariah looks happy here,” he said.

“I hope she is,” Daeron said guardedly. “It is the greatest pleasure of my life to make her happy,” he added. “So, why are you bringing this up?”

Maron hesitated. “Because I’m not sure I can give Daenerys what you gave Mariah,” he said. “My heart is not free to give. But surely love was not the only thing that made it work?”

Daeron paused, giving him a thoughtful look.

“I didn’t think you’d dare,” he finally said. “Good on you that you did.”

There was no hostility in his eyes, no querulous indignation that Maron dared compare a mere paramour – mistress to a Targaryen princess and even place her higher. Daeron merely considered the question. But Maron had had to ask.

Baelor had proven himself a friend. Yes, he had meant politics but his advice had worked on a personal level as well.

“I always had her back,” Daeron finally said. “Against everyone. She was not welcome here – in fact, I think my lord grandfather and I were the only ones who took up to her immediately and he died soon after this. I was the only protection she had at court and as hard as it was sometimes, I never allowed myself to forget about this. Love is a nice thing to feel but it means nothing without the actions to prove it.”

Maron nodded, wondering bitterly what exactly he was about to prove. He would always protect and respect the girl he did not love; he would send away the woman he did. It was so messy.

Daeron gave him a level look. “And of course, Mariah did something very important,” he said. “I know it cost her… I’ll always be grateful to her that she never, not once commented on my father despite his downright disgraceful behavior towards her. She avoided any contact with him but she didn’t unleash her rightful complaints at me when she knew I couldn’t do more than what I was already doing. I knew very well what he was and I would have been unpleasantly surprised if Mariah had told me as well me when I was already helpless. Especially when I was Daenerys’ age.”

The message was clear, the warning – even more so. Daeron had taken his measure immediately and he had let him. Maron sighed and wondered if bravery and honesty were not overrated after all.

Not that it mattered. Daeron had achieved his purpose. No matter everyone’s personal feelings, no one in the Old Palace – no one in Maron’s circle – would be allowed to serve Daenerys this unpleasant surprise. Even those whose families King Aegon had destroyed.


End file.
